First quest: The Terrebae
by Fantasy Boudicca
Summary: My first quest... was not fun. Part of my DMCRT universe, and while ideally you should read that first, this works just as well as a standalone. One-shot. Rated T for some minor swearing inside; no F-bombs, just a very frustrated teenage Knight of the Round Table.


**A.N. For those new to the DMCRT universe, the POV character is Dame Matilda, the technically older sister (even though she is fifteen here) of (forty-six-year-old) Sir Lancelot. She was transported to the twenty first century with her brother Peter and Lauren daughter of Sir Kay as a six-year-old to be raised in a Government facility which deals with supernatural/magical stuff (known as M9) to defeat a returned Mordred with the Knights of the Round Table. She lived there for nine years, thus the weird age difference.**

**She has since returned to her own time - before the Knights were frozen by Merlin, but as these Knights hadn't been frozen yet, no-one knows much about her other than her nephew Sir Galahad, who was sent back with her. Merlin had King Arthur knight her when she returned. On with the story!**

My first quest as a Knight started out normal. I was on guard duty in the Great Hall when a lady rode in, the look on her face desperate and panicked.

The Great Hall and Dining Hall, where the famous Round Table was, opened right up to the outside, for the sake of speed and convenience for messengers. They could ride right in if they had to, but it wasn't encouraged, if only because it was a nightmare keeping it clean for official visitors and it wasn't all that easy to stop in time before you hit someone or something.

She'd arrived right in the middle of when the King was receiving audiences. "I come from the outreaches of Your Majesty's kingdom. There has been an attack by a demon! A dark faceless creature, like a ghost. It freezes whatever it comes into contact with. Half the village has been frozen as is! I was the only one that knew the way to Camelot and I was sent here for help."

"Is there anyone who will accept this quest?" King Arthur turned to us Knights.

Us Knights usually hung around the Great Hall in our free time, to be around for quests. I'd been dying to prove myself since I was knighted a couple of months earlier, so I strode forward, raising my hand.

"Very well. Dame Matilda, Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad and Sir Gawain accept the quest. They leave within the hour. In the meantime, Cenred will show you where you may rest."

The gawky squire who somewhat reminded me of Jamie back at M9 beckoned to the lady, and the four of us took it as our cue to leave.

A lot of Knights had a bag pre-packed with stuff they needed on a quest. Clothes, sharpening stones, et cetera. Mine had two changes of clothes and underwear, soap, a couple of strings for tying hair, a skin of water and some non-perishable food, flint and a pair of bracers, along with a few miscellaneous items like a small container filled with string, a large piece of canvas, sewing supplies, useful stuff. I already had Aegis and Athena, so all I needed to do was to have Lauren dress me in armor and I was done.

...

Never let it be said that beginning a quest is fun. There's hours of riding, and if you aren't used to it or you just have bad luck, you're not going to be able to move much at the end of the day.

Galahad and I were better off than the others, since we were both still in our teens (he was eighteen) and both of us were used to it, and even then, I had to grab my legs and shove them back into their normal position just to stand and move properly. Galahad did the same, stretching a bit, then told his dad that we'd be off to get firewood and would they please set up camp in the meantime?

Cue the lady, whose name we found out was Gudrin, to scream for us not to, the demon might attack us.

To that, I tapped Aegis three times, making sure it was turned away from everyone when it morphed into its full size. "It has the world's scariest face on it and it's impenetrable, and Galahad and I are trained Knights. Nothing can happen."

She nodded fearfully, but let us go.

By the time Galahad and I got back, Lancelot had dug out the two meter by two meter canvas sheet I kept in my bag and spread it on the ground for the lady to sit on, and Gawain had taken off his armour. Apparently my brother was on first watch tonight. "Good. You have the firewood?"

We turned in an hour after supper. Lancelot was on first watch, then me, then Galahad, then Gawain.

It took another day for us to reach the village.

What greeted us was nothing short of horrific.

People were just frozen, in the streets, in their homes. Entire buildings were encased in blocks of ice. I saw one boy frozen while kicking a ball. A mother carrying a baby was frozen in the middle of running away.

When I found that demon, the Devil himself would cringe at what I did to it.

"It only attacks at night, and is repelled by fire," the lady informed us. Good. I was sure Athena could turn into a flaming sword or something. If it was repelled by fire that meant it was likely hurt by it. If it could be hurt with fire, a flaming sword...

I grabbed Athena and checked. Nope. Sword with thin holes going all the way through from one side of the blade to the other, that's it. "Damn. Anyone got any idea how to turn this into a flaming sword?"

"Glue cloth on it and set it on fire," Galahad suggested. "Or sew."

I took another look at the holes. "Thanks. Have to admit, magic is useful."

The four of us decided on a plan to get the demon where we wanted it. It needed a bait, which to my chagrin I ended up as. As much as I hated to admit it it made sense - you could tell at a glance that the other Knights were trained soldiers, but me, not so much. I would be a far more appealing target than the others.

Thus why I was now sitting in front of a fire in a dress, Galahad, Lancelot and Gawain in chainmail around me.

"I'm getting more firewood," I announced, getting up and putting on Athena. I had my bracers and Aegis on underneath the loose sleeves.

They nodded and I headed out, acting as if I didn't see the frost on the ground, the plants frozen solid...

I felt it before I saw it. I screamed for my colleagues and in under a second they had surrounded the thing with torches, buying me the vital two or three seconds I needed to draw my sword and set the oil-soaked cloth on fire.

It caught and I charged the ghost. Gawain stepped out of my way just in time for me to bring my sword up and slash at the thing.

It sort of screamed and collapsed in on itself... and split into two identical ghost things. I cursed and tapped Aegis into its shield form.

"Hydra!" Gawain yelled. Hydra was slang among the Knights for a monster that split into two or more if cut in half or grew two or more limbs in the place of one cut off. Translation: Don't cut it in half.

Plan B, then. "Attack plan Tomb! Galahad-me swap!"

They instantly obeyed. I plunged Athena into the earth to put out the fire and handed it to Galahad, changing it into a giant shovel, while Galahad gave me his torch and I took his place holding back the things. Lancelot and Gawain moved with me to force the things to the ground with our torches.

Attack plan Tomb referred to trapping whatever it was in from all sides and forcing the monster into a hole in the ground and burying it. Every supernatural creature encountered yet by the Knights, physical or not, had never been able to pass through the ground for some strange reason. Galahad was Olympic weightlifter-level of strong - 'strength of ten' in the stories for a reason, so the job went to him to dig the hole.

I swear, he just dug once, and the hole was there. Together we managed to force the ghosts into the hole and bury them.

"Thank God," Lancelot all but sighed in relief, throwing his torch on the ground and stomping it out.

Galahad grinned...

...

"Next time you get frozen, give a bloody shout you moron," I muttered, pulling on the thread harder than I really had to.

Galahad had been unconscious since we got rid of the ghosts - Terrebae, they were called - a few hours ago. Apparently the idiothad been touched by one of them while we were swapping but somehow wasn't frozen completely solid, and managed to dig the hole. We'd thrown him under as many blankets as possible and put a few warming pans in for good measure to thaw him out, but it was a long wait. I'd decided to do some repairs while keeping an eye on him.

I finished up the repairs and changed needle-Athena back into its usual sword form. It was pretty late, or early, I wasn't sure, and I was exhausted. The other two were older than I was, though, so they must've had it worse than I did, and I couldn't ask someone else to keep an eye on Galahad with a clean conscience.

If I squinted, Galahad looked a lot like an older Peter. Huh. Weird how genetics worked. Peter's nephew looked exactly like him. Come to think of it, Galahad was my nephew, and he was older than I was.

Then again, I was young enough to be my brother's daughter.

I must've fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew someone had picked me up. "Mmlph?"

"It's me. You fell asleep."

It took me an instant to recognize Galahad's voice, just as he put me down on a bed. "Galahad! You shouldn't be out of bed! You were nearly frozen solid just a few hours ago!"

He gave me a fondly exasperated look but nodded anyway, sitting down next to me. "I'm not the one who fell asleep with my head in a pile of sewing."

"No, you're the one who got touched by the Terrebae and somehow wasn't turned into an ice cube, then proceeded to ignore all common sense and use full strength to get rid of said Terrebae," I retorted. "In any case, you know me, I can fall asleep anywhere anytime."

"Fair point. Go to sleep, I'm not going to be able to anyway."

**A.N. The Terebae were inspired by the Dementors from Harry Potter. I just amped up their sucking the warmth out of everything and replaced the Patronus charm with fire.**


End file.
